my Tumblr

It’s an overnight trip to the cottage. Svetlana, Cliff, Jackie (but not Hayden) Pike, most of the centaurs, and for some reason David Hollander are all there. Everyone’s expecting some Death of a Bachelor style extravaganza, a dramatic send-off of Boston’s Finest Eater, a glittery funeral for the man who once did a line of coke off a model in a moving car.

But then they all get there and Ilya just wants to…hang out? Kinda? There are video games and jet skis and funny stories told around a campfire. There’s an impromptu game of charades that ends with Jackie Pike throwing a shoe at Cliff Marleau and splitting his lip open.

But it’s still Ilya Rozanov. His 2014 club-rat soul is as strong as ever. He’s going to make it a good time.

By 10:00 PM they’ve been playing never have I ever for over an hour trying to find something he hasn’t done. It’s David Hollander flabbergasted and impressed. It’s Wyatt Hayes shouting “what do you mean you’ve been kidnapped before?” And Zane Boodram yelling “I didn’t even know that was a position!”

It’s Cliff wearing a comically large pair of sunglasses to disguise the fact he’s sobbing while drunkenly telling everyone story after story about Ilya’s Boston days. He’s slurring “and no homo, man, but I’m not even mad those girls made us kiss during that threesome! It was an honor!” Before collapsing. Luca Haas passed out after the first round of Twister.

David Hollander is white girl wasted congratulating his future son in law, he’s shit talking Montreal for hurting his sweet boy so loud that they have to cover their ears. Him and Ilya are bonding over their shared experience with a stubborn spouse that they can’t say no to. Eventually Ilya switches completely to Russian without realizing and gets pissed when no one laughs at his clearly hilarious jokes.

Halfway through the night Sveta has to call Shane (who is at home completely sober) so Ilya will stop attempting to ride a peloton bike to their house. Ilya starts weeping the second he hears Shane’s voice. It’s “baby stop crying I’ll see you tomorrow okay?” and “holy shit did you get my dad wasted?” But David isn’t around to hear because he’s actually on a similar sounding FaceTime with Yuna. Ilya falls asleep on the floor cradling a framed photo of Shane as a little kid.

It’s one of the best nights of his entire life. Practice is cancelled for three days.

“Gale is my friend. We hunt together. He’s cool ig.”

How it's going:

and so he gets himself into position near the visitor locker rooms and he gestures to ilya as he’s leaving said locker rooms (looking very shellshocked and quiet and scared mind you) and he takes him to the side and just says

“hey i was with hollander when they were taking him away and he kept trying to tell us to talk to you. tell you that he’s ok. man i don’t know why he was insisting but—”

and he just cuts himself off because rozanov’s face is doing something really weird?? Almost like affection?? Then it’s wiped clean and he’s rambling off this excuse of “oh we got friendly at all stars this year he must have seen me stay on the ice once he got hit okok thank you so much for message i have to go”

and the security guy watches ilya practically run to the team bus and just stands there and goes. huh. that’s weird.